Acknowledging the past: SATELLES’ new album premiere & track-by-track commentary

By the time we premiered the first single off SATELLES‘ new record ‘Some Got Saved‘, we already knew the full record will be a ne hell of a listen and yet another worthy addition to the legacy of European melodic hardcore. Today, we’re super pleased to unveil its full stream and let you charge your batteries for the whole week.

With their new offering, Budapest based SATELLES have transferred their creative energies to penning a memoir for the generation born and raised after the fall of the Berlin wall, the era after the Iron Curtain.

In our new album we went back to the topic of the regime change in 1990, one of the main events of the 20th century that shaped the attitude of the generation who grew up in the post-soviet era: the disappointed ones, the seekers and the fugitives who were forced to leave Hungary and their hometowns, their beloved ones.

Playing melodic hardcore/punk in Eastern-Europe is not much different from playing melodic hardcore/punk anywhere on the globe. The difference is only rooted by the bond between the message and the heritage that this sound can amplify, and SATELLES in-between Budapest and Sheffield found their own tone by now, thanks to a thorough self-examination.

SATELLES by David Bodnar

After two memorable and crucial years when the band toured in Eastern-Europe the songs of their previous effort – and shared the stage with acts as Comeback Kid, Bane, Ignite or Endzweck -, ‘The Wolf You Feed’, it was visible that the next step needs to be self-identical and mature through their music. ‘Some Got Saved’ delivers their most energetic hardcore/punk songs with an ’00 attitude, deeply inspired by acts as Newborn, Bane, Sinking Ships or Verse, while the lyrics are reflecting on the behavior of the sometimes silent, sometimes apolitical generation born and raised in the 90s with their longing spleen.

We have teamed up with the band to give you the full track-by-track rundown, giving you a chance to learn about the concepts behind their engaging lyrics that hopefully will get people thinking about the world around us and digging into the history of their nations.

Always Young:

The opening sequence can look like an intro, but we think about Always Young as a real song, even if its message emerges from the sound samples we took from ABC News’ archives and the historical speech of George W. H. Bush at Marx University, when he announced the support of the US to overcome the communist regime with democratic elections. Enough said, the possibility of change is always in the hands of the youth.

Confrontation:

We still feel that this song represents mostly the heritage of Newborn in our music: when we wrote the opening guitar melody, we were already sure that this song needs to open the lyrical part of the album with full of energy, anger and passion, especially with the lyrics that can be read on multiple layers. This is the closest song we ever wrote to the heritage of Newborn, one of our biggest inspirations from the 00s.

Some Got Called:

That’s the perfect possibility to explain the album title, that has been inspired by the third Alien movie. The original quote goes as „some got called and some got saved”, and this manner of thinking reflected on the two possible ways how the prisoners should live their lives. They have the chance to serve a higher order in a sacred context – and waiting for an unseen and holy turn of events to rely on –, or they can stand out for themselves to find peace by their own decisions. Obviously we believe in the second part, especially in an Eastern-European, post-soviet context, with the most important things that we need to face: to ask the question from ourselves that would our Grandfathers be proud about our current, grown-up actions, and how can we avoid the ongoing defection where young Eastern-Europeans are forced to leave their families behind for a living?

Grace Under Pressure:

This song was inspired by the well-known Hemingway-quote that appears in the title: we believe that this track has a positive tone either in the lyrics or the guitar melodies. It easily became one of our favorites from our new songs.

Time Stands Still:

This track has been inspired by the Hungarian cult movie under the same title from the 80s, that reflects on every day lives during the Communism from the ruins of the revolution at 1956 to the regime change. The opening sequence of this movie contains original footage from the revolution, and the lyrics are reflecting to the heritage and the atmosphere you can see in the movie as well – obviously it has a visible importance in our identities, and in the musical aspect we wanted to widen our boundaries in this track.

The First Passage

We hope it doesn’t sound as a cliche at all, but we believe in the importance of the first movements – no matter if we’re talking about a couple, or tearing down the Berlin wall or the Iron Curtain –, and the effects they open up. This song was one of the last tunes we wrote in our previous rehearsal room which we were forced to leave due to a governmental construction – because of the same reason, hundreds of Hungarian bands needed to seek for alternative spaces in last July –, and we think about this track as an ideal opening for a tape deck’s B-side.

Dreamcatcher:

Our previous album, The Wolf You Feed was highly inspired by a Cherokee paradigm, and we felt the need to reflect on the last two years where this album took us – and we’re not only thinking about our tours, shows where we could support acts who still inspire us, but also the atmosphere that surrounds us. So we built up a nightmarish idea about everything we stand against, and it easily became one of our favorite songs.

Abandoned Kingdom:

This song was the latest addition to the album, we finished it four days before we’ve entered SuperSize, but it also summarizes not only the progress from our previous album, but the atmosphere we wanted to reach through these songs. We were also humbled when we’ve sent out the song to the designer of our cover, Pol from Branca Studio, and he sent us back the minimalist but effective covers with the gallows and the two girls from an archive photo taken after the revolution of 1956.

To Be Awake Is To Be Alive:

As dozens of other bands, we’re also highly inspired by acts as The Carrier or Burst, especially that they’ve found a solution to write and transform a characteristic melody that can overrule an album by itself. When we started to work on this song, we were sure in two things: it will reflect on Some Got Called – both tracks were written in parallel – and also it needs to be the final track on the album. Anything else, including the Thoreau-citation came by the process. We’re more than happy with the final outcome, it’s possible that this is the best song we’ve ever written yet – but at least we’re sure that there wasn’t a better way to finish an album like that.

Acknowledging the past: SATELLES’ new album premiere & track-by-track commentary

★ IDIOTEQ is a DIY online magazine covering some of the hardcore punk and rock music scene, and supporting DIY ethics and local bands

★ IDIOTEQ (pronounce “idiotec”) is a phonetic transcription of the word Idioteque – the act of suddenly going into a crazy, seizure like state. A vision of a society, where people are increasingly more obsessed with pointless technology, selfishness and mindless entertainment than life itself.